Tag: Blog

In part, in response to some rather scathing reviews (Slate, The New York Post) of her latest novel, “The Feminist and The Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story” (originally titled, “Learning to Submit”), bestselling New Mexico author Alisa Valdes has blogged a shocking and disturbing sequel to the book which has just recently hit retail shelves.

Today on her official blog titled, “The Diary of Author Alisa Valdes”, she writes in horrific detail just some of the heinous events she said she suffered through at the hands of her once revered “Cowboy”, post completion of the manuscript that he inspired as it was submitted for publication. The lengthy account is a drama of its own, which chronicles not only the lifeline of the novel itself, but provides an inside look at the journey to publication to where it stands today, being sold and promoted, or a lack thereof.

There are so many sad accounts in this real-life saga, from the artist’s struggle in creating an honest to herself account as a memoir for her fans, to the truths of the levels of abuse men and women will suffer at the hands of those they love and profess to love, to the scrutiny and judgment bandied-about when any aspect of one’s life is put forth for public consumption.

Valdes never fails to provide the cold hard details for her fans, whether it be after the fact or against the wishes of her publishers, her truths are on display, often in gut wrenching detail:

“There was the night we argued at my house, and he was going to leave, as he always did, stonewalling and locking me out being his favorite weapons, his silent treatments going on sometimes for weeks on end, the emails finally coming in which he said he was willing to come back as long as I changed a long list of things about myself, and me always caving in…but that night, he was brutal again, when I tried to say I was sorry, when I tried to stop the inevitable stonewalling, he glared, called me a mouthy cunt, told me to get to my side of the bed and not touch him, told me that he couldn’t stand the sight of me, told me that if I really wanted to impress him then I’d be a good girl and just shut the fuck up, and his finger poking me in the chest, and then wagged in my face, telling me that my biggest problem, the reason he would never marry me after all, was that I was a woman who just didn’t know when to shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, and me saying I would, that I would be quiet, and turning my back to him so he wouldn’t hear me cry, and him feeling the bed shake anyway and yelling at me that I was pathetic, that if I wanted him to stay then I better stop fucking crying, and me running into my closet with my phone to fall in a heap on the floor and text myself so that in the morning I’d remember that this was NOT okay, that this was NOT love, and him pretending the next morning that nothing had happened.”

Not okay, indeed. Valdes goes on to provide a likely sought after look at the “Cowboy” himself, and even includes a brief video of what looks to be an interview she may have conducted with him herself.